The Sound of the Trees

I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

SOME RECENT POETRY

Stephen Vincent Benét’s

Heavens and Earth

Thomas Burke’s

The Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse

Richard Burton’s

Poems of Earth’s Meaning

Francis Carlin’s

My Ireland

The Cairn of Stars

Padraic Colum’s

Wild Earth and Other Poems

Grace Hazard Conkling’s

Wilderness Songs

Walter De La Mare’s

The Listeners and Other Poems

Peacock Pie. Ill’d by W. H. Robinson

Motley and Other Poems

Collected Poems 1901-1918. 2 Vols.

Robert Frost’s

North of Boston

Mountain Interval. New Edition, with Portrait

A Boy’s Will

Carl Sandburg’s

Cornhuskers

Chicago Poems

Lew Sarrett’s

Many Many Moons

Louis Untermeyer’s

These Times

---- and Other Poets

Poems of Heinrich Heine (Translated)

The New Era in American Poetry

Margaret Widdemer’s

The Old Road to Paradise

Factories and Other Poems

THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE

American and English 1580-1918
Selected and arranged by Burton Egbert Stevenson
Third Edition Revised and Enlarged

Over 4,000 pages of the best verse in English, ranging all the way from the classics to some of the best newspaper verse of to-day. In several different editions.

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK

Transcriber Notes

Typographical inconsistencies have been changed and are highlighted and listed below.

Archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.

Author’s punctuation style is preserved, except where noted.

Transcriber Changes

The following changes were made to the original text:

Page 46: Added period after trees (Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn, And even fruit trees.)

Page 63: Added stanza break between go and Don’t (And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go.)

Page 63: Single quote changed to double after through (“He’ll pull through.”)

Page 72: Removed extra stanza break after stumbles (The handle stumbles. The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!)

Page 74: Removed extra stanza break after wife (“Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!––And your wife? Good! Why I asked––she didn’t seem to answer.)